While there’s no part of the CFP® Exam students are excited about (except passing, that is!), folks seem to dread case studies. And we understand—you’re staring at pages of tables and data and then have to answer a bunch of questions about it—of course it sounds a little daunting.
But guess what? CFP® exam case studies aren’t bad at all. And to prove it, we’re sharing our strategies for success!
Let’s get into it.
Listen up! Adam and Jerry share their secrets to success on case studies in this episode of BIF Bites podcast:
Okay, the exam is made up of 170 multiple-choice questions broken into four sections of about 40 questions (give or take). Basically, think of it as one day, four mini-exams, because once you hit the end of the section and can take a break, you can’t go back to answer any questions you skipped or anything like that.
The exam topics come from eight principal knowledge areas:
There are three types of questions you’ll encounter on the exam:
The good news about short scenarios and case studies is that you’ll know they’re coming. Before the fact set, the exam will say, “The next three (or six, eight, or 15) questions will be on the information below,” or something kind of like it.
When you’re faced with a CFP case study, you’ve got three options:
You can read all the information thoroughly before you start on the questions. You’ll have a solid grasp on the details and can answer the questions, only referencing the material when you need to.
It’s great to reduce the risk of missing important details but it can eat up a lot of your time (and information overload is real).
Instead of taking a deep-dive, you can just skim over the case study to get a feel for the theme and the key information. Then, you can start on questions, knowing where to look for relevant information in the case study.
This is a good way to save some time and not get too far into the weeds because you already know what to look for.
If you really want to plow ahead, you can skip over the entire case study and just start on the questions, reading each question and going back into the information to find the answer.
You may be able to find the information you need, but with this approach, you run the risk of spending more time searching around for the relevant information.
At BIF, we recommend you skim the case study first to get a feel for the information. Do you need to read the entire case study? Not really. There are usually a lot of unnecessary details, and while the context can be helpful, you won’t need all of it to answer the questions.
Instead, take these steps before moving onto the CFP® Exam questions:
Seriously, don’t skip the footnotes. We’ve found so many answers to questions that are literally right there in the footnotes.
Now, it’s time to answer some questions.
Go ahead and scan the questions to see if there are any easy ones—it’s surprisingly common how often they’ll throw a standalone softball question into a group of case study questions only because it’s on the same topic. Then, just dig into the questions you’ve got left, track down the answers in the fact set (remember…footnotes) as you need to, and get them done!
See? We told you CFP® case studies aren’t so bad!
Okay, aside from skimming the initial material, and reading the footnotes (Yes, we are intentionally repeating this. It’s very important.), here are a few other things to keep in mind.
Sometimes a case study will pop up in the first 10 minutes of the exam and you may think, “I’ll just come back to it.” Don’t do that.
Instead of having the case study hanging over your head while you’re answering the short scenarios and standalone questions, just knock it out when you get to it. Plus, you won’t run the risk of forgetting to go back and do them.
In the case studies, some areas may be oddly specific or include an almost-bizarre level of detail. When you’re scanning through the data, we’d recommend highlighting anything that feels a little out of place because it will almost certainly be relevant.
So, the CFP® Exam has two 3-hour sessions, each one is divided into two subsections. Basically, you’ve got about an hour and a half per subsection, and you can’t go back once you finish it.
We know most of the concern surrounding case studies is how time-consuming they are. We also know that the general guideline is to spend about two minutes per question.
Here’s the thing, you’ll be able to bank some time with those softball standalone questions (whether they’re in a case study or just sprinkled through the exam). For example, you may get a question like “How much is the gift tax exclusion?” You know how much that is and can answer in 10 seconds or less.
Questions like that will balance out the time you spend on case studies, so while you should be mindful of time, don’t overthink it.
BIF Review students who pass our mock exam have a 90% CFP® Exam pass rate—at least 35% higher than the industry average! With virtual classroom instruction and clear, easy-to-study materials, plus thousands of practice questions, we make sure you’re ready for Exam Day.
Learn more about The BIF Review, or try it for free for 30 days